Opera Software has posted some preview versions for Opera 6.1, both for FreeBSD (natively) and Linux. In other browser news, Phoenix 0.1 was released, which is meant to be a lighter version of Mozilla. Update: Opera 6 for Mac is now also available.

I for one am glad that Opera finally made a version of Opera for FreeBSD. Whenever i tried to install the Linux version to FreeBSD, i always got an error message saying that it was aborting the installation because the OS was not Linux (Linux compatibility had been enabled).

I'm glad to see that Opera 6.1 uses Qt 3, but since I use Qt 3.0.5 and there is an incompatibilty with the styles of older versions of Qt 3, I only can choose an ugly motif style. From the preferences I can choose other styles but they don't work. This small problem is due that Opera was'nt compiled with Qt 3.0.5. On the contrary I can enjoy a good antialiased text.

I tried it a while ago for some web site testing, and it worked *very* well under binary emulation.

I was quite impressed with it, of course, I still prefer Mozilla/Phoenix/Galeon, but it worked great.

Have you tried to install it from the ports tree? Or you downloaded it by yourself? I think the port takes care of some problems for you, for me it was as easy as any other port:
# cd /usr/ports/www/linux-opera/; make install && opera

BTW: for all those Phoenix bashers out there, Phoenix is still quite alpha, at version 0.1 it already rocks in many ways, although for me it doesn't yet justify the switch from Moz. Give it time please, Phoenix is the future of Mozilla, it has a modular approach instead of the monolithic app that Mozilla is, it's just that right now is missing all the optional modules

I'm quite sure that in a few months everybody will be using it instead of the main Mozilla builds. Once all the missing mozilla functionality is available as modules + all mozdev.org stuff + a good module manager, it's going to rock.

\k

P.S.: Eugenia: are you running Phoenix on a BeBox or some other kind of prehistoric hardware? It works really fast here, and my computer is not exactly anything near a p4 2Ghz... even mozilla is quite fast this days, I have not even bothered to upgrade to 1.2a and stick to whatever the mozilla-devel port has(1.1+plus a few fixes), oh, well, maybe is because I'm running a superior OS(FreeBSD) ;P

At this risk of being modded down...
Eugenia, why do you complain so much? If you read the faq on their site, they said it wasn't finished, the downloaded is expected to be smaller, and speed, ofcourse, should improve. You're just like all those people you complain about. "Those people" who are so quick to bash MS. I don't know what kind of system you're running over there, but it seems to be only compad. with microsoft I.E.?

Ok... Without entering the whole "Maybe it's time to switch" arguement, Phoenix, unfortunately, is NOT a faster browser currently.

In fact it takes longer to load for me than Mozilla, which is entirely the reason I was looking for a lightweight version of said browser.

If it matters (and it doesn't), no I'm not using it on a POS system. It's got 1/2 gig of memory, WinXP, and a 1.2Ghz CPU to play with, and it's still noticably slower both with loads and render speeds.

Hopefully this will improve (it's gotta!), but for now Phoenix is a neat idea, but not a useable browser.

The only caveat to this is that you don't have to install Phoenix to run it, simply unzip the archive, and run the executable.

Realistically, other than load time, I don't see the need for Phoenix. Mozilla renders pages for me as fast as IE does (or if it's slower, it's not noticably so). My only grip is the load time (and no, I don't want Mozilla constantly in memory so that it loads 1.3 seconds quicker the next time, so this is all referring to cold starts).

The ONLY feature I want Mozilla to add, and it's one they're not likely to add, is the ability to support IE layering. I've got some custom apps that only run in IE right now, and while Mozilla's the first non-IE browser to display these pages correctly, it still doesn't allow one to interact with embedded layers as IE does.

Howdy, Q3Xr2. I believe the note regarding the QT incompatibility (between QT 3.0.5, the latest FreeBSD ports version, and QT 3.0.x<5, which is what Opera was built with) only applies regarding the *dynamic* version, where Opera uses your system's QT. The static version, which has all the necessary QT stuff built in, is faster anyway. So use the static version and be happy. (I have been, and all styles, not just the "ugly Motif" one, work fine.)

I kind of get a feeling that you have decided anything mozilla sucks.
10 s is what it takes for ME too start Phoenix (PII 300, Win2k).

If that's the case, she wouldn't express interest in K-Meleon, would she?

Besides, for me, Phoenix is as fast as Mozilla. But I much prefer the bookmark manager, which is the best I have seen. It just needs A LOT of refinement, but what could one expect from an alpha app? :-)

Anyway, on Opera for Mac, finally, Mac seems like a viable choice for my next computer (unlike before where it isn't in the running).

Again, on Opera for mac
Isn't it unfair that the Linux verson don't blend it automatically with KDE, and the Windows version likewise, while the Mac version just blends in? What makes Opera think that only Mac users like something consistent with their platform? Hrmmmm....

Well, I've been using Opera under FreeBSD For about the past two years (through compat) and it's worked great. However, it's always nice to see a native version. It's also nice when commercial companies acknowledging the existance of FreeBSD

Opera still needs (the following two OmniWeb features):
* Popup killer with "Allow popups only in response to a link being clicked"
* Adblock

I've been very impressed with Phoenix so far... its UI is definitely more responsive for me thatn Mozilla's and I really like that it uses native UI widgets. I'm looking forward to what happens as they continue to improve it... for a 0.1 release it's pretty dang good. :-)

> Why are you using Opera over OmniWeb?
I for one use both, but I prefer Opera for several reasons:
- Its much more standards compliant
- Its lightning fast
- Its got full screen mode
- Its cross platform (I can use it at work with the same bookmarks file)
- Its got tabs
- The bookmarks are searchable
- Its got instant zoom
I think I'll stop there. For now.. Omniweb have lots of good features, first and foremost its rendering and regexp tools, and its not a bad browser. But it laks much in speed and standard compliance.

Bascule: Welcome to X. None of your applications will ever have a cohesive feel.

As a QT app, it should at least try to blend in with the most used desktop on Linux and FreeBSD. Plus, like I mentioned, it is an QT app.

Bascule: Umm, I don't see anything discontiguous about the windows version. Perhaps you need to turn off the skin.

On Windows XP, it looks completely out of place. On Windows 2000, it blends in more, but still looks out of place, even with the Classic theme (the beveled objects are mcuh smoother on native apps than on Opera).

Bascule: Why are you using Opera over OmniWeb?

Because I love Opera :-) My god, you don't know that? How long have you been coming here?

and it again loads up quickly for me, i have no problems with the widgets or anything. I wonder if there is just a problem with the windows version currently becasue i haven't been able to reporduce any of the slowness on two of my machines.

>What are you running it on? It only takes 4 seconds on my box running Windows XP, 600mhz Celeron, 256mb of ram.

I run it on a *dual* Celeron 533 with 256 MB of SDRAM.

>I kind of get a feeling that you have decided anything mozilla sucks.

It is only your feeling. I am very open minded about Mozilla. It just doesn't work well here. What do you want me to say, that it does, just because it is an "alternative"? You knock on the wrong door pal.

> You say that your XP is the best for you, but regarding the problems you seem to have with non-MS apps maybe it's time to switch? Or maybe you "only need" MS apps these days...

You got to be kidding me that I should switch an OS just because some developers don't know how to write and profile code. And I don't have problems with other apps generally. Only with Mozilla's performance. If I switch something this would be a browser, not an OS.

I gave a try to Phoenix 0.1, and I really am liking what I see so far. I don't think its feature site is as complete as Mozilla, but looking at how things are going, chances that Phoenix will become my primary browser one day are very high.

My impression is that Phoenix does load faster. Not only that, but much faster. Maybe Eugenia's problems have to do with her hypothesis that she seems to have problems no one else experiences . Phoenix does take 10 seconds to launch, but in the old P166 with 96MB of RAM machine. In my regular Duron 900 laptop it appears almost instantly.

Definitively not bad for a 0.1, maybe because everything except the XUL frontend is already done This is a good demonstration that even XUL can be fast when treated properly.

> I kind of get a feeling that you have decided anything mozilla sucks.

I kind of get a feeling that people who try to rip Eugenia have no clue what she is talking about. I do not understand how her arguments could be any clearer; if she says Phoenix does not rock, she means that it does not rock.

What is so hard about reading what a person says and thinking about it rationally before posting?

> You're just like all those people you complain about.

No, she was just making a good point. Pheonix does not rock. It may rock in the future, but it does not rock now. Misleading statements must be corrected regardless of how the correction makes us feel.

Its ridiculous to compare the time it takes any application to launch to Internet Explorer. IE is always open, it loads when you boot. Its the little advantage you get when you make the OS too. If you want to compare launch times for Mozilla/Mozilla based apps to IE the only fair comparison is to enable quick launch so both programs stay resident.

Its a fact of life big apps take time to launch, you can hide it in boot time, or you can just deal with. RAM is cheap why not just leave it running...

As for the now infamous widget issues.... I just don't see it on 600 Mhz PIII thinkpad...

The reason people don't use Omniweb is the same reason they stopped using NS 4.x, its behaviour is only loosely connected to what was written in the HTML, JS and CSS on the page. So Google and NTK will work, but many blogs and sites like ALA look like an explosion at a paint factory.

Every significant OS vendor now includes a browser that implements W3C standards to at least a basic level. Switching from that to some browser that can't handle CSS1 just because it fits better with your window decor puts you in the same mental category as those people who buy "beautiful" HiFi systems that sound like a cheap Walkman clone.

The same thing is starting to hurt Opera as well. In their case static pages are looking pretty good these days (even fixed their PNG bugs unlike Microsoft) but W3C dynamic HTML aka DOM mangling just doesn't work worth a damn.

BTW I've seen the same issue AND worse on Internet Explorer. I was surprised because I thought the native widgets couldn't do that, but they do. It's probably an event ordering problem. This was in IE 5.x and may be fixed in the latest version, but I saw it, so I now regard Eugenia's Mozilla bug as just another "Your mother / No, YOUR mother" argument. It should be fixed, but there are lots of more important things.

(No I don't have screenshots, I noticed and was angry because I was trying to demo something to people. Otherwise I wouldn't have had cause to use Internet Explorer in the first place.)

Ok, granted Phoenix is still an 8mb download and takes about 10 seconds to start for me...

but other than that I find this release incredibly polished for a 0.1 release. You people seem to be missing that point... they JUST released it Monday night. They intend to do much more tweaking. They have stated that speed is their primary goal.

I'm using it right now and I find it great. Like I said earlier, start-up is a little slow, but once it's started, page rendering is almost instaneous. Not many other browsers can claim to be this usable and polished after only a 0.1 release.

I will definitely keep using it... and I hope someone ports it BeOS *hint hint*

BTW I've seen the same issue AND worse on Internet Explorer. I was surprised because I thought the native widgets couldn't do that, but they do.

I see this sort of thing all the time in XP in general (with the start menu, no less!) I don't have screen shots of the start menu itself, but you can peruse http://fails.org/xp for some screen shots I've taken of XP's failure to render things properly in general.

These screen shots illustrate similar problems on two different machines. Some are from a 2GHz Pentium 4 system (labeled designed for Windows XP, ironically enough) with a GeForce4 MX and the Nvidia 30.82 WHQL certified drivers. The other is a Pentium III 800MHz system with an ATI Rage 128.

NoBeForMe said: "The same thing is starting to hurt Opera as well. In their case static pages are looking pretty good these days (even fixed their PNG bugs unlike Microsoft) but W3C dynamic HTML aka DOM mangling just doesn't work worth a damn."

Yep, Opera Software admits that the 6.x versions of Opera don't support much of DOM. DOM support is, however, one of the primary stated goals of O7, coming RSN to a computer near you.

Of course, "Just how soon is Real Soon Now?" is a whole 'nother question.

> Its ridiculous to compare the time it takes any application to launch to
> Internet Explorer. IE is always open, it loads when you boot...

But no one compared Mozilla's load times to IE. Stop trolling.

> but other than that I find this release incredibly polished for a 0.1 release.
> You people seem to be missing that point... they JUST released it Monday
> night. They intend to do much more tweaking. They have stated that speed
> is their primary goal.

In the future. But not now. Now repeat after me:

Eugenia did not say that Phoenix would fail.
Eugenia did not say that Phoenix is a dumb project.
Eugenia did not say that Phoenix would never "rock."

> I see this sort of thing all the time in XP in general (with the start menu, no
> less!) I don't have screen shots of the start menu itself, but you can peruse
> http://fails.org/xp for some screen shots I've taken of XP's failure to render
> things properly in general.

Even though you said that you had tested it on two different machines, I still believe that it is a graphics problem of some kind instead of a problem with the UI. I do not encounter those problems on my Athlon XP machine with either an ATI Radeon 7200 or a Matrox G550.

The only problem that I have with the Radeon is that the My Computer icon refuses to restore itself as a high color icon after launching a fullscreen game. The only solution to this problem (rebooting won't work!) is to reload the game and exit. Wierd. But it does not happen with the G550.

The problems discussed in this thread with Windows itself are most likely due to the complexity of the Windows GDI that video card manufacturers implement.

It's been awhile since i tried installing Opera onto FreeBSD. I recall that i had downloaded it from Opera's website. At the time i asked about it on Usenet and someone said it was the version of FreeBSD i was using. Got the next version and still didn't work. I would load it from Ports, but when i ftp more than a meg or so i lose my Internet connection and have to reboot. I'm on a cablemodem. Been too busy to spend time researching what's causing it. If you have any ideas i would appreciate hearing it.
Thanks,
Jay S. Lazlo

In the interest of being thorough, I switched over to KDE 3.0, and I am seeing slower drawing & a longer load time. My earlier comment was running Ximian GNOME, which handles Phoenix quite well, so far.

Strange turn that the debate here is taking - what exactly is the criterea for something to "rock" or not to "rock"? :-s

every single shot you posted is the result of an application failure, not a windows failure. Granted, it sucks that IE is making these mistakes, but it is still IE's fault, not windows' (integration arguments aside...).

Notice that in all your screenshots, the title bar is never corrupted. Like a window manager, all windows is responsible for constantly drawing is the titlebar and window frame.

A quick intro to how windows draws, well, windows. GDI draws the "window" (titlebar+border) in a size/design (max min buttons etc) given to it by the app. Then, it tells the app what the window looks like, and asks it to "draw." Unlike OSX, windows has no idea what is in the window. If the application needs a button, it asks windows (actually the common controls apis) to draw a button. When parts of a window are covered then uncovered (as has happened in these screenshots) windows tells the application "please redraw yourself." What is happening in this situation is that the application is busy with something else and hasn't gotten around to redrawing itself yet.

Basically, there are two ways to solve this (and no, neither will solve eugenia's slow menus problem). First, make your application multi-threaded so it can simultaneously do stuff and redraw. IE is terrible about this (often while struggling to load a web page, it won't redraw for minutes). Second, Windows could cache the window's bitmaps. This would require Windows to, whenever a window's contents are updated by an app, to cache them, and just use the cached contents until the app could redraw itself (or just used the cached, and assume the app will redraw if anything changes).

Interestingly enough, Suggestion 2 already exists in Quartz, and should exist in Longhorn (all the 3-d stuff will do this). In fact, XP and 2k already *sort-of* support it through their transparency support. For a window to be made transparent, it first must be made "layered" which essentially means that whatever it covers is cached. Try to cause the same corruption you've caught in your screenshots with a partially transparent window: it won't happen. Of course, transparent windows, especially ones any bigger than winamp, move terribly slowly, which is why layering isn't enabled on all windows (layering takes almost as much work as transparency). but that, of course, is what Longhorn's new GUI stuff aims to fix.

I have Phoenix on my 1.7 GHz/1 GB RAM/XP Pro box. I didn't time it, but I was expecting it to open sooner than it did. It does remind me of Chimera, which I use all the time, and is why there is no Mac version of Phoenix. If it improves in the same manner that Chimera has, it will be excellent. But now, there are lots of bugs and all that Mozilla code in there that's dead weight. At any rate, I look forward to upcoming updates.

Phoenix launches under 7 seconds. Yet its bookmark manager in both linux and windows sucks, what is everyone talking about. It is so bugged, it only displays what is already there.

Phoenix will one day develop to be a good browser, but I already mentione Beonex in the first page of these comments. Hasn't anyone tried Beonex for linux or windows? It launches just as fast as Phoenix, and yet it is more ready than Phoenix, also I haven't noticed any bugs.

If it isn't in RAM you have to get it from DISK. Posting specs on your processor and RAM don't mean a damned thing. Sorry, but they really don't matter in that situation which is what people seem to be talking about here.

IE loads fast enough. For the most part I don't really notice load times unless things are REALLY slow. Then again, I only notice the time on a much older system. Trying to get mozilla or anything else to load off a laptop with a drive 3 years old is going to be slow. Doing the same off my desktop machine with all Ultra 160 SCSI hardware does not even register. The laptop takes probably 8-10 seconds, the desktop maybe two or three if that ( off the cuff guestimate ).

Processor and RAM have little to do with it when there's nothing in RAM in the first place. I matters only once it makes it to RAM. In which case even the slowest system probably has decent "load" times once it's been run once and hasn't been replaced in cache.

Corruption of menu bars and other bugs are just that. Bugs. They will get fixed in time if enough, or the right, people can find them. How many of them are the application, and how many might even be driver related, and how many are actually Windows or X11 related?

I've used Opera on BSD. It worked, but I didn't care for the sheer amount of stuff needed to build it from the ports. This was the linux-opera port. Galeon took forever to build and left so many extra things installed that I really didn't spend a lot of time with it. Mozilla was pretty decent, but I still tend to run Konq. When in Windows, I tend to just type in URLs from the explorer window without even using IE. Yes, I know, it's the same thing, but I'm not opening up yet ANOTHER window/program, just what extra needs to be there to make it work.

As long as it works, use what you like. It completely mystifies me when someone says something is available and people drop out of the woodwork saying something else is much better, or this sucks, that rocks. What happened to the responses of "That's excellent. Have you tried program Y as well?"